Towards the Oasis

Camels on parade. Here's the story (& eight additional photographs) about the Master of Miniatures, Nikolai Aldunin on My Modern Met.

Worlds Collide Warning - World Day Against Cyber Censorship

Oh I'm late with this...Italian friends say. I ask you. What's more Italian than being late? OK, great food, clothes, style. I'm in trouble no matter what I type now. It's World Day Against Cyber Censorship. Great good feelings go out to those in Iran, China (& elsewhere) who are imprisoned or in hiding. Here's Amnesty International link, too.

The second photograph is by Susannah Conway of Ink on My Fingers & sums up what's happening here now. (Along with azure chandelier longings.)

Week's End late tonight...

True Blue

...The stony street

Displayed the stillness in which buildings stand,

The street-lamp’s vigil....[Delmore Schwartz]

[photograph via a blog & I don't want to link it-- too weird. Via we heart it]

Patterns in the Carpet

I don't know what mine are, much less yours, but I am interested. I am not referring to a new book by Margaret Drabble. But of course, a new book playing on a Henry James short story title is out & about. Ah well. It's up for grabs, that phrase/literary preoccupation/allusion/what-have-you. One could look at labels & conclude any number of things. I just did it myself...not really helpful. So here's a Lillian Bassman photo of Evelyn Tripp in the November 1948 Harper's Bazaar via myvintagevogue while I think about it some more. And write out a check to Made4Aid because apparently no one even bothered to go visit their site after my entreaties on both blogs. Wow. I'm pretty annoyed (& really disheartened).

Taking the Waters

Rereading, ruminating, & taking the waters. Apartment style, alas, not in a Czech spa town. Though I have done.
[reading in the bath by Nina Leen/LIFE archives; film still/Unbearable Lightness of Being/still photographer Phil Bray]

Blue Solution

So no one has advice on laptops. Well, I could just buy an Olivetti & be done with it. A blue one. This photograph is via alexkerhead's flickr set Cameras, Typewriters, Telephones, & Radios. Very cool.

Cleaning House

Literally & virtually. Must publish one post per day on each blog. Discipline.

The more serious thing: I'll probably be off-line as of Friday, a few weeks (I hope not that long). No, it's not a trip to the beach or Rome or Crete or Santorini. You would definitely hear about that. It's serious because of work-I-need-to-do & necessary e-mail, & I love the radio all day but sometimes, you just have to watch Supernanny or Sherlock Holmes Mystery on PBS. And I still can't do that because I remain unsuccessful in fashioning an antenna out of the cat. You know, to bring in the digital-signal.-that-would-change-our-lives. (Julie is willing, I swear. No PETA spamming please. It's a joke.)

Speaking of jokes, I'm furious at Dave L's forced (I'm convinced) apology to "that woman." Yes, I cringed at a few of the jokes....I knew he'd get slammed & I'd like to talk to some of his writer-guys. Still. Get over it. BTW, do people look at their Googley-Analytics? I try to avoid except very occasionally because it creeps me out. But finally I'm going to type it: Wasilla, Alaska . Five straight weeks. Are you kidding me? Well, all residents can't be fans of their former mayor, The Woman Who Made Me Crack My Tooth (via Stress). [better title in the offing]

No comments (yet) such as: "Oh yes! I'm going to re(read) Gatsby, or look at Shirley Hazzard books, get over my unreasonable fear of Naples, or -- this would be my dream come true-- "I performed Molly Bloom's soliloquy in a junior high school talent show & everyone fell faint, except one fabulous (silently applauding) teacher. I had one of those...Ms. Hughes. From Real Ireland. No, I didn't perform the soliloquy...how I wish.

ciao

[Photograph by Yael Joel via LIFE Googley archives, 1953]

Summer Sleep

Just finished listening (mostly) to Terry Gross (on NPR's Fresh Air) interview Woody Allen. Unfortunately, I was distracted by something (I think it was Corine at Hidden in France, yes. It was. It's her fault.) I recommend the podcast. It was good to hear him; I didn't gnash my teeth or talk back to the radio once. Terry asks good questions & allows people to answer thoughtfully. Or not.

I thought: what would make me happy, materially, right now. No one lecture me about 'materialism' -- not until you're in my shoes-with-holes. Don't you dare. (Woody's list, along with non-material 'things' is quite similar to mine. I don't know if that's good or bad. It's amusing.).

I'd like to have an antenna so I can watch the BBC News feed on PBS at 6pm; watch Dave Letterman's monologue, tape Craig Ferguson & puppets (don't judge), & see the scenes from Iran today. Or watch anything but 'here's how you fix your freaking TV that you thought was digital.' And for the record, before one more well-meaning person says it's a blessing in disguise: I have no problem, whatsoever, ever-ever, with turning off the television. I have taken to old-guy behavior of circling programs for the week. Because even here in DC, there are few daily prompts to watch World News or Frontlline. When it's your choice, it's one thing; when you've no choice, that's elitism talking. Oh the poor will be so much better off it they do not have their telenovelas..

This is an excuse to start posting photographs of rooms-I-like. Some are white, some are multi-colored, all styles. I'm not a magpie...I can be happy with many different styles. I am not so high-maintenance that it has to be 'roses' rather than 'liles' (or vice versa...anyone who read The Rose Thief knows about the parsley-in-creamer jug.) Beautiful peonies at the market this afternoon...surprised I wasn't charged to sniff.

So other than replacing/fixing everything that is tattered, & making sure this computer doesn't crash, & of course a camera...what would make me happy? A bed-frame that is not broken & propped up with old art books. It is far beyond bohemian, I assure you. Other people romanticize this kind of life. No, I want a bed-frame & to send out the carpets to be cleaned properly. Mary Cassatt's poppies, while lovely, are not helping. Unless I had them here, in a one of my favorite vessels. These Mediterranean photographs were torn from a magazine many years ago & stapled into notebooks. I think it might be Marie Claire Maison.

I resisted the urge to crop out the Louis Vuitton trunk in the Med-bedroom.(my reverse snobbery). I have to take the html out later but I'll leave it in for now. The scan of the room with all the 'stuff' is my reply to "toss everything out' articles I've seen (especially lately). Someone (paid) to pontificate in the Washington Post wrote recently "throw out those little paperbacks..." & keep the hardback books. Whaaaaaa? I'd have to buy them back. I have volumes of poetry & vintage paperbacks. I re-read them. Why on earth would I toss them out? This was written by a person who does not read, I am convinced, much less re-read. Oh, yeah, I'm really going to toss out vintage first paperbacks of Plath, Camus-and-Gide-in-French (1950s) & a few copies of New World Writing (that's what I can see from here, where I sit. Literally.).

Back to being upset that I don't have the magazine information. I'll do that tonight & then back to rereading Gatsby, as I do every summer (at least once). Just to keep myself in check. I actually know a Tom & a Daisy (unwillingly). Yeah, I do. Believe it or not.

[I must insert something about Iran: Have been "tweety-birding" with some friends there. Also, the Post today is so very incorrect about the polling in Iran. They are wrong. I can hardly believe my eyes & ears at times. If you are interested in Iran (& you should be, for all kinds of reasons), pay attention to Robin Wright. She's at the Woodrow Wilson Center, used to be at the Post before they bought out people-who-know stuff. Robin & Geraldine Brooks are the two Westerners I trust about Iran. Read them; their books are wonderful. I'm so very glad that I did not "toss them out." They love Iran, too, so the snoot factor is not there.]

Julie in Black & White

UPDATE: There will be no post today, Thursday, 11 June 2009. It was an awful day yesterday here in Washington, not a good one & I'm receiving hate email for the Giulia Geranium site. I'm disgusted (but not surprised), as well as shaken. svs

Just startled awake from the desk chair, twice. How graceful; at least I didn't fall off. More storms due. Julie C. pix because Julie (the Cat) is lying on bed & named for her. Plus my hair will be back to normal by tomorrow noon. Bless lovely, generous hair stylists who understand about parties & their networking importance. It just cannot be Wednesday yet. But it is. Have a great day. [by Paul Schutzer/LIFE archives]

Blue Wall(paper)flowers

But Mona Lisa musta had the highway blues/ You can tell by the way she smiles/ See the primitive wallflower freeze/ rest
[1960 Vogue via myvintagevogue/sidebar]

Spanish Manners

In a Spanish mood, flamenco chic on GG...& I love this photograph. It reminds me of a friend who grew up mostly in Madrid & Barcelona (though she is American-by-passport). Her father was, uh, a diplomat. (It took a few years to convince her that there were very few opera emergencies in 1960s Saigon, no matter her memories.) I loved her father, too, despite it all. We had shared Graham Greene Syndrome. (Dangerous place? We're there. I'm over it.) Sorry to say, he's been gone for...I don't know. Before September 11, anyway. Otherwise, I'd remember calling him in Barcelona.

I needed major protection for an event once (actually more than once). Sunglasses, a person on either side, & hauteur weren't enough & so out of my friend's Spanish closet came The Very Beautiful Thing. An enormous, black, embroidered antique flamenca's mantilla. I couldn't believe she would allow it out of the apartment. The fringe was on the floor unless I held myself just so. Which was the whole point, just so. I feel a subject coming on...or perhaps re-obsession. Now, though, time to make dinner.

[On another note: is anyone else about ready to storm the radio station where that oaf-toad Limbaugh lurks? I cannot escape him; everywhere, BBC, CBC, all the BCs. Eek. And no, a Latina judge nominee didn't bring on the Spanish stuff. Poking around GG archives did that...reruns due to same old non-health.]

[by Martha Holmes, LIFE archives, what else? ]

View from an Italian train

I feel like an Italian baby. Vegetable broth, a few tablespoons of arborio rice (OK, they get rice cereal), & a teaspoon of olive oil. (Start'em early.) So trip to Amalfi with personal photographs interrupted. Here's a view from a train (no specific town noted) by Carlo Bavagnoli in 1970. From a photo-story in LIFE archives titled Eurailpass in Europe (Train Travel). I didn't do the Eurailpass--no time. I was in school. But this does remind me of riding the train back & forth from France to Italy on school holidays. (Taken to friends' homes as I really had no place to go. I can't believe some American kids go back & forth to the States on their schoolbreaks if in Europe for a year or more. Spoiled! And they're missing out, too.)

Will be back for decent post later tonight. I hope. Dreaming about the desert...perhaps due to feverishness. ciao amici.

Week's End - The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination

No time for other photos, perhaps I'll do that when I return from the outside world. [see 4 June update at bottom, if it really matters.]

This has been in mind all last night (& the past year). I posted about it twice in the Giulia Geranium blog. Once last June (in our random series, "Scots We Like...") & again at the beginning of this year.

Let's just say that if an interesting, attractive, single man approaches you while you are sitting at an Amnesty International table, engages animatedly with you for who-knows-how-long, & offers not once, but THREE times, to fetch his copy of an alumni magazine to give to you...take the offer. Because no matter how much information you've exchanged, if you don't know his name or where he works, duh, you'll never be able to contact him if you finally, finally get what he was trying to say (beyond the importance of hearing this speech).This was witnessed by a good friend who knows what she sees, she couldn't believe what she saw. I am, in fact, an idiot quite often.

Returning home that day, after my personal failure-in-hindsight, I read the speech online (dial-up doesn't do YouTube). I was a sobbing mess after reading about Rowling's early stint at Amnesty's London office. I knew exactly what she meant & have been in the same exact situation. I knew she'd spoken at Harvard; the press mentioned not one bloody thing about Amnesty. I (& enlisted others) badgered them to finally mention her shout-out on the mother-page website. I began to post regularly on GG (one-year anniversary is Monday, 4 May) because of this encounter. I just saw, when I went to get the link that it took me from 15 June to 21 June to post it. Hmmm.

Over the past year, I've received (& continue to receive) scores of email (I didn't take comments on GG until recently) from humanitarian field workers thanking me for posting it. This was the first they heard of the speech, too. So I'm rerunning the photo that I found back then, the link to Harvard Magazine, online.

A stubborn, peeved me wants to reprint the whole thing here & force the issue. But if people don't want to read it, what can I do? It's hugely important to me. And if anything comes out of my personal failure to act, then that will be something. Yes, he came back & left his contact information; the idiot at the table who relieved me of duty felt it was "inappropriate" & tossed it. I got that much out of my colleague. And no, the man does not know it. So, while I hear from people around the world, someone who lives but two miles (at most) is out of reach. Yes, I was a reporter & have excellent investigative skills & a bunch of information. Couldn't be done, gracefully.

I'll be back but I don't know when. Meanwhile, I see that The Clever Pup has a mouth-watering feast to attend ...I see it in my Google Reader...and very important: Tina's dad at The English Muse was rushed to hospital...please check in on her, those of you who are regulars. I can only see that he's OK but can't see the details. She must be slammed with exhaustion.
See you later. Happy May Day.

[4 June 2009 temporary update to photos: JK Rowling writing-in-full-view because I cannot stand to see the Harvard photo come up in LinkedWithin every single day so many times. Still looking for better pix. 4 June 2009]
[second photo/Harvard University Magazine/online]

Afternoon in Ercolano

Out of a sow's ear...these photos are awful but a reminder of a day spent at a friend's office. She was charged with renovating a palazzo, outer buildings (including huge stables...all I could think was poor Hercules with that particular chore), & gardens...& starting a graduate business school for the Italian government. In English. And dealing with some sort of flower show or display that day & the bitterly complaining florists (about where each one had been assigned for their arrangement). And, and, and. My friend handled it all quite gracefully, including a depressed friend who showed up for three weeks with one pair of black jeans, three black turtlenecks, a boyfriend's old red pullover, & not much else. Oh, yes, a list of complaints about life. The other pictures from the trip are all in bright sunlight so I'm not sure what happened here. The flash went off, we thought so anyway. This is really for writing purposes & later. I know I always write that but 'tis true. (Ercolano is the Italian name for Herculaneum of Vesuvian fame/infamy.)

Couple in Black & White

Couple by Ernest Haas of the great Magnum Agency. It's a scan (& cropped) of the UK edition of Richard Ford's Women With Men. Great collection. Paris plays a role, if you've not read it, but not the way romantics might like. Or might. Disappointed ones. (Is there any other kind? Seriously, I'm asking.) An obnoxious novelist, an ex-, snickered derisively when he saw I had Ford on my shelves. "Women hate him. He's a men's writer." Huh? No one told me. I should have known right then. Would've saved five years. But that's another photograph.

I think the photograph is from a series but haven't had time to look.

PS: Trying to break my OCD should-have-post-ready for 7am publish-next-day, no matter what. Here's hoping.

Blue typewriter, 2

Another vintage blue Olivetti by Peter Lindberg, of Stockholm. This is a Lettera 22 for you Olivetti-philes (who probably already knew that). ciao

Blue typewriter

I love this & can't do anything with it right now as a big bunch of snow & high wind are making their unwelcome way to the DC-area. (A big bunch of snow would've have been most welcome in February; as it is March, I see no reason to be chipper about it now.)

The blue mosaic was made by Yvonne Stehle who graciously gave me permission to use it. (Coincidentally, she has an etsy shop, moline.) A thing with portable typewriters (I wish I still had mine) & a few paragraphs from a poet's journal have me obsessing about: Olivetti portable typewriters (mainly red, though), delphinium, a blue balloon, figs, oranges, & the Matisse chapel in the south of France. A Vespa, too, I think. All will become clear eventually. For now, if posts keep coming at 7am & seem to have absolutely nothing to do with anything else (that is, more than usual), then I'm in the midst of a power outage. ciao!

Week's End - It's Me, I'm Not Home*

*The title of a poem by good friend, Reetika Vazirani. From her last book, World Hotel, though there was at least one more manuscript. Probably will be writing over the weekend but also on a photo search. Have a wonderful weekend, wherever you find yourself.

(Photograph of orange vintage phone by Grant Hutchinson)

The blank page.....

...isn't that scary. The one you fill & then read back? That can be scary. Back later. Wonderful photos from Alice Lucchin, a Venetian. ciao.

Update: Just checked & I used this already. In January. Oh well. Not changing it, it's too good.

Desktop déshabillé

Mme. Sarkozy's desk is that of une bricoleuse, non? (photograph by Bharat Sikka via CB's site)